Just the daily thoughts and gripes of a guy attempting to survive in America's heartland.

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

The Ghosts of Christmas Past

When my kids were young, we used to go to Minnesota for the Holidays. Often we went at Thanks Giving, and held the family Christmas celebration on the Saturday following. As a special treat for the kids, and to make cleanup easier for the adults, we would often rent a couple of motel rooms and move the party there. Since the closest and most convenient cities were Brookings or Sioux Falls, we had a pretty good selection of motels to choose from, and we always went for one with a pool.
One year, the selected motel had a pool that was indoor/ outdoor. Everything was split by a huge garage door that dropped down a couple of inches into the water.
For a little back ground, the cousins on my side were older by ten or more years. On my wife's side though, they were grouped pretty close. The oldest was six months older than my oldest, and the youngest were grouped a few years below my youngest. It was the perfect environment for mischief.
We were all gathered around the pool. We'd ordered pizza, and when they arived, I realized we were missing a bunch of the kids. A quick assessment revealed that they had slippedunder the garage door and were all frolicking in the courtyard. It was snowing, nearly a blizzard, and they were out there having a snow ball fight. No big deal? They were in swim suits. No coats, no shoes, running around in the snow and having one heck of a good time.
No real choice for me, I too ducked the door and joined them, pizza be damned. I'm a cold weather sort of guy, and a snow ball fight is just the game for this crowd.
The missus was busy gabbing with her sister and mom, but it wasn't long before she realized the pizza was just not disappearing like it should have been. The next thing I knew, she was beating on the glass of the walk out door. It was clear that she was mad as a wet hen. madder than usual. She has a temper. I can say that, we're divorced.
Well, we delinquents all jumped back in the pool and ducked back under. I was accused of being the ring leader even though I was the Johnny come lately. No big deal, I was used to it after fifteen year of marriage to her.
She resumed her throne beside her sister, and they went back to gabbing in a New York minute.
Bodies though were not the only thing to come under that door. As I crawled out of teh pool, I was in the perfet position tio witness what happened next.
One of her nephews brought a huge pile of snow with him. Enough survived the heat of the water for him to make an olympic sized snowball, and the final shot of the fight landed right square in her chest.
Lets just say she was calm earlier. There are no words to describe the fury that erupted.
Now, I was off to the side at her far left. That king of all snow balls came from almost dead center at her front. Didn't matter, I was guilty and she was going to be my executioner. No, Not a snowball of retaliation, she was mad for a month and took every opportunity to yell her head off at me.
I was used to it. The only difference was the duration. She could carry a grudge, and if grudges weigh an ounce, she had ten ton of them with my name carved in em.
About two years later her brother in law told her the truth about who threw it. She called him a liar. As far as I know, I'm still the guilty party in her book.
Might be up to twenty ton by now, Who knows. Any way, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.